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Question of the Week: Uploading Your Consciousness to the Internet

Every week we ask a question of our audience to stimulate discussion and critical thinking about an issue or topic relating to science, skepticism, technology or religion. Our favourite comments are discussed on this week’s episode of our podcast, The Pseudoscientists!

Transhumanism is a growing movement that predicts and endorses the eventual merging of organic human brains with inorganic computer systems. While one route to that endpoint is through physically adding computer hardware to the brain in a cyborg-​​esque fashion, another way to join machine and man is by uploading a person’s mental state into a network of computers… much like the Internet. While neuroscientists and philosophers are divided over whether or not this could actually be an actual possibility, such scenarios have been commonplace in science fiction for decades. So, if and/​or when the time comes:

Would you upload your consciousness to the Internet?

Would our minds become lost in a sea of noise? Would privacy cease to exist? Is a physical body just too good to pass up? Could this be a way to cheat death? What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

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Jack Scanlan

Jack is a writer, podcaster and insect geneticist, and happens to be the President of the Young Australian Skeptics. Don’t make him choose between science, music and comedy – that’d be a terrible thing to do. Visit full profile »

Maybe not the “internet” internet. Too many viruses, hackers etc. A bunch of dedicated servers used only for the uploaded minds and their virtual environments would be ideal and I’d sign up asap :D
A brilliant Australian author Greg Egan wrote a book where this is the norm “Diaspora” for those interested

Andrew

Can I just upload a copy? Or several? Could I be beamed out into space without all the unnecessary human plumbing?

http://fods12.podbean.com/ James Fodor

I actually think that as humans and computers merge over the coming decades and centuries, we will gradually see a change in the perception of self. People will become so interconnected with others digitally that all distinctions between ‘self’ and ‘other’, and related concerns about privacy etc, will fade into unimportance. Just as our modern lifestyles would be unrecognizable and incomprehensible to those of our ancestors only a few centuries ago, so too will the mode of existence of our descendants in generations to come. Just imagine how different a person would be, for example, if they grew up with a permanent direct neural connection to the internet? This sort of thing is not at all implausible. I think we will see these types of technologies within a few decades. As for me, I can’t wait to upload myself to the internet (or something like that). Imagine all the places you could go, the people one could meet. Why should we remain forever imprisoned in these fragile, ephemeral bags of mostly water? There are far too many interesting and important things to do, people to meet, and knowledge to acquire. Bring on the Singularity I say!

annikavictoria

I definitely would. I’m pretty keen on immortality. That said, I would want to make sure there was some really good virtual-​​reality-​​type place for me to “live” in — I think that without a body, or at the very least a simulation of a body, providing your brain with sensations and all that, life would become pretty torturous (sensory deprivation studies have repeatedly shown that your brain needs sensory input to prevent you becoming insane).

Like Matthew, I am also really keen on the science fiction author Greg Egan who has written all about this in quite some depth.

Tom

NOPE NOPE NOOOOOPE. Someone gets your brain-​​copy and BAM they know everything you do. They can digitally torture you for information. They can put you in a swimming pool and take out the ladders. You become their PLAYTHING.

L.Long

Not to the internet, but to an android type body-​​SURE!!!
I would not download to the internet because there are too many viruses.
My homeopathic anti-​​virals would not work, again, and I would not want any anti-​​virals because I would not want to be autistic with eternity to live.

HC McFarlane

Being ‘alive’ in all its sensory glory is pretty good — so I wonder if you should (would?) only get uploaded after physical death.
The combined consciousness of all who had come before us could then serve as some sort of wise being with the collective knowledge of the human race.

(See Peter F Hamilton’s Edenists, to also take inspiration from scifi!)

ForgiveMe

Interesting. The movie Transcendence sparked my interest in this, but I didn’t find this blogpost because of it.

I am not sure. And I am not sure if I understand the question. Will I copy my consciousness to the internet or will my consciousness move to the internet? Or will it be able to move from my body to the internet freely?

I can imagine myself being trapped forever on the internet or not being able to cope with it or whatever. That’s one reason I wouldn’t like it. In fact the nightmares that scare me shitless occasionally are the ones where I am consciousness but can’t wake myself up or move my body (I dream I am consciousness).

Conclusion: I would want to first understand how it works and would prefer other people to go first.

One reason I would like it: I would be capable of more intelligence. Concerning that, I think I would prefer more GB’s of memory implanted in my brain or something that increases/​stimulates your neuroplasticity.

Capabilities from other organisms are interesting too. I think they are looking into horseshoe crabs (because of their blood), certain salamanders (because of limb regeneration, there are actually war veterans regrowing fingers) and naked mole rats (because of their resistance against cancer).

I wouldn’t mind becoming a mutant. I am not a fan of immortality though. There are some people who want to achieve that.